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Open World Leadership Center

The Open World Leadership Center’s mission is to enhance understanding and capabilities for cooperation between the United States and the countries of Eurasia by developing a network of leaders in the region who have gained significant, firsthand exposure to America’s democratic, accountable government and its free-market system.

While meeting with a group of Kyrgyzstani investigative journalists, Rep. Peter Roskam (far right) looks at an Open World annual report with host George Palamattam (second from left) of the Council of International Programs Chicago and Tiffani Harris (center), Open World’s Brookings LEGIS Congressional Fellow for 2012.

Open World delegations consist of committed leaders who experience in-depth programming in themes of interest to Congress and of transnational impact, including human-trafficking prevention, government and court transparency, nuclear nonproliferation, and environmental protection.

Adrienne Tongate (left), senior manager of International Programs, Chicago Sister Cities International and Anna Yashchenko, one of the Ukrainian educators hosted in Chicago in November, on Election Day.

The Open World Leadership Center administers the Open World program, one of the most effective U.S. exchange programs for countries of the post-Soviet era. Through Open World, mayors, legislators, judges, civil servants, educators and entrepreneurs from across the former Soviet Union have come to know the real America.

“I was impressed by the hospitality and the friendship at the Air Force base. From childhood, Communist times, there was a stigma attached to American military as scary, aggressive people. It’s great to know those were stereotypes,” says Dmitry Lebedev, a delegate from Russia hosted by the City of Enid, Oklahoma.

The Open World program focuses both on assisting the Congress in its oversight responsibilities and on conducting exchanges that establish lasting professional relationships between the up-and-coming leaders of Open World countries and Americans dedicated to showcasing U.S. values and democratic institutions.

Russian educators take a short break between meetings on Capitol Hill. The group will be hosted in Cincinnati, OH, October 19–27 by the Cincinnati – Kharkiv Sister City Partnership.

Open World Trustee, Mr. Jeff Fortenberry (NE), meets with an Accountable Governance group from Russia in his Washington, DC office.